The referee mechanically started counting, but it was unnecessary. I strode over to my corner, took my bathrobe from the limp hands of a dumfounded handler and was about to climb out of the ring, when the director, who had thrown hisself on the ground and was biting the grass, come to life.
"Grab that idiot!" he howled. "Tie him up! Soak him! Get a cop! He's crazy! The picture's rooint! We're out heavy money! Grab him! If I got a friend in court, I'll send him up for life!"
"Aw, stand away!" I growled at the menials who approached me uncertainly, "this was a private matter between me and Bert."
"But it's going to cost us more than we can afford to pay!" wailed the director, plucking forth strands of his scanty locks and tossing them recklessly on the breeze. "Oh, why didn't you perform according to instructions? The first four rounds were pippins! But that finish--oh, that I should live to see this day!"
WELL, I FELT sorry for him and kind of wished that I'd waited and licked Bert outside, but I didn't see what I could do. Then up rushed Tommy Marks. He began yanking at the director's sleeve.
"Say, boss," he yelped, "I got a great idea! We'll cut that last round at the place where Bert got knocked down the last time! Then we'll start a scene with Reggie Van Veer, see? Splice the shots together--they can fix it in the cutting room, easy!"
"Yeah?" sniffed the director, wiping his eyes. "I should throw Reggie in with that man-eater. He's crazy; I think he's the maniac that tried to kill Reggie down-town yesterday."
"I thought he was Bert," I said.
"And listen," cried Tommy, "the shot will show Reggie getting up off the canvas slowly, with Steve waiting in his corner. Then Steve rushes out, Reggie meets him with a right to the jaw and Steve flops! A sensational k.o. at the end of the greatest fight ever filmed! See? Reggie won't even get hit at all. And nobody can tell the difference."
"Well, how'll I know this cave man won't take a notion to flatten Reggie when he gets him in the ring?"
"Aw, he's got nothin' against Reggie, have you, Steve? That was a private feud between him and Bert, wasn't it, Steve? You'll do it, won't you, Steve?"
"All right," muttered the director. "We'll try it, but don't rush at Reggie too ferociously or he'll jump clean out of the ring."
I had listened to this talk with much impatience. I wanted to square myself with the movie people and was willing to do what I could, but just now I had other business. I signified my willingness to do what they wanted me to do, then I hurried over to the seat where Marjory sat. She was not in it, and I seen her following close behind the handlers which was taking the still groggy blonde battler to his dressing room.
I hastened to her and laid a gentle hand on her little shoulder.
"Marjory," I said, "fear that big fellow no more! I have avenged us both! He will not be apt to bother you again! Tell your old man not to be afraid, no matter what this big flop has on him! Bert will not come between true lovers again, I bet you!"
To my utter amazement and horror, she turned on me with flashing eyes.
"What kind of gibberish are you talking?" she cried furiously. "You big brute! If you ever speak to me again, I'll call a policeman! How dare you speak to me after what you've done to poor Bert? You beast! You villain!"
And with that she swung her little hand and slapped me smack in the face, then with a stamp of her little foot and a burst of tears, she run forward and gently slipped one of Bert's arms about her slim shoulders, cooing to him gently.
I stood gaping after them like a fool, when Tommy pulled my sleeve.
"Hey, let's get on that shot, Steve."
"Say, Tommy," I said, a bit dazed as I followed him, "you see that little dame that belted me in the map just now? Well, what's that bozo, to her?"
"Him?" said Tommy, biting off a chew of tobacco. "Oh, nobody much--just only merely nobody but her big brother!"
At that I let out a howl that could of been heard in Labrador, and right after that I have to act as nurse to Tommy, he havin' swallowed his tobacco when he hears me yap.
Anyhow, I learned you never can tell when women is holdin' something out on you.
THE END
* * *
Contents
SLUGGERS ON THE BEACH
By Robert E. Howard
THE MINUTE I seen the man which was going to referee my fight with Slip Harper in the Amusement Palace Fight Club, Shanghai, I takes a vi'lent dislike to him. His name was Hoolihan, a fighting sailor, same as me, and he was a big red-headed gorilla with hands like hairy hams, and he carried hisself with a swagger which put my teeth on edge. He looked like he thought he was king of the waterfront, and that there is a title I aspires to myself.
I detests these conceited jackasses. I'm glad that egotism ain't amongst my faults. Nobody'd ever know, from my conversation, that I was the bully of the toughest ship afloat, and the terror of bucko mates from Valparaiso to Singapore. I'm that modest I don't think I'm half as good as I really am.
But Red Hoolihan got under my hide with his struttings and giving instructions in that fog-horn beller of his'n. And when he discovered that Slip Harper was a old shipmate of his'n, his actions growed unbearable.
He made this discovery in the third round, whilst counting over Harper, who hadst stopped one of my man-killing left hooks with his chin.
"Seven! Eight! Nine!" said Hoolihan, and then he stopped counting and said: "By golly, ain't you the Johnny Harper that used to be bos'n aboard the old _Saigon_?"
"Yuh--yeah!" goggled Harper, groggily, getting his legs under him, whilst the crowd went hysterical.
"What's eatin' you, Hoolihan?" I roared indignantly. "G'wan countin'!"
He gives me a baleful glare.
"I'm refereein' this mill," he said. "You tend to your part of it. By golly, Johnny, I ain't seen you since I broke jail in Calcutta--"
But Johnny was up at last, and trying to keep me from taking him apart, which all that prevented me was the gong.
Hoolihan helped Harper to his corner, and they kept up an animated conversation till the next round started--or rather Hoolihan did. Harper wasn't in much condition to enjoy conversation, having left three molars embedded in my right glove.
Whilst we was whanging away at each other during the fourth, I was aware of Hoolihan's voice.
"Stand up to him, Johnny," he said. "I'll see that you get a square deal. G'wan, sink in your left. That right to the guts didn't hurt us none. Pay no attention to them body blows. He's bound to weaken soon."
Enraged beyond control, I turned on him and said, "Look here, you red-headed baboon, are you a referee or a second?"
I dunno what retort he was fixing to make, because just then Harper takes advantage of my abstraction to slam me behind the ear with all he had. Maddened by this perfidy, I turned and sunk my left to the hilt in his midriff, whereupon he turned a beautiful pea-green.
"Tie into him, Johnny," urged Hoolihan.
"Shut up, Red," gurgled Harper, trying to clinch. "You're makin' him mad, and he's takin' it out on _me_!"
"Well, we can take it," begun Hoolihan, but at that moment I tagged Harper on the ear with a meat-cleaver right, and he done a nose-dive, to Hoolihan's extreme disgust.
"One!" he hollered, waving his arm like a jib-boom. "Two! Three! Get up, Johnny. This baboon can't fight."
"Maybe he can't," said Johnny, dizzily, squinting up from the canvas, with his hair full of resin, "but if he hits me again like he just done, I'll be a candidate for a harp. And I hate music. You can count all night if you want to, Red, but as far as I'm concerned, the party's over!"
Hoolihan give a snort of disgust, and grabbed my right arm and raised it and hollered: "Ladies and gents, it is with the deepest regret that I announce this bone-headed gorilla as the winner!"
With a beller of wrath, I jerked my arm away from him and hung a clout on his proboscis that knocked him headfirst through the ropes. Before I couldst dive out on top of him, as was my firm intention, I was seized from behind by ten special p
olicemen--rough-houses is so common in the Amusement Palace that the promoter is always prepared. Whilst I was being interfered with by these misguided idjits, Hoolihan riz from amongst the ruins of the benches and customers, and tried to crawl back into the ring, bellering like a bull and spurting blood all over everything. But a large number of people fell on him with piercing yells and dragged him back and set on him.
Meanwhile forty or fifty friends of the promoter hadst come to the rescue of the ten cops, and eventually I found myself back in my dressing-room without having been able to glut my righteous wrath on Red Hoolihan's huge carcass. He'd been carried out through one door whilst several dozen men was hauling me through another. It's a good thing for them that I'd left my white bulldog Mike aboard the _Sea Girl._
I WAS SO blind mad I couldn't hardly get my clothes on, and by the time I hadst finished I was alone in the building. Gnashing my teeth slightly, I prepared to sally forth and find Red Hoolihan. Shanghai was too small for both of us.
But as I started for the door that opened into the corridor, I heard a quick rush of feet in the alley outside, and the back door of the dressing-room bust open. I wheeled, with my fists cocked, thinking maybe it was Red--and then I stopped short and gawped in surprise. It wasn't Red. It was a girl.
She was purty as all get-out, but now she was panting and pale and scared-looking. She shut the door and leaned against it.
"Don't let them get me!" she gurgled.
"Who?" I asked.
"Those Chinese devils!" she gasped. "The terrible Whang Yi!"
"Who's them?" I inquired, considerably bewildered.
"A secret society of fiends and murderers!" she said. "They chased me into that alley! They'll torture me to death!"
"They won't, neither," I said. "I'll mop up the floor with 'em. Lemme look!"
I pushed her aside and opened the door and stuck my head out in the alley. "I don't see nobody," I said.
She leaned back against the wall, with one hand to her heart. I looked at her with pity. Beauty in distress always touches a warm spot in my great, big, manly bosom.
"They're hiding out there, somewhere," she whimpered.
"What they chasin' you for?" I asked, forgetting all about my hurry to smear the docks with Red Hoolihan.
"I have something they want," she said. "My name is Laura Hopkins. I do a dance act at the European Grand Theater--did you ever hear of Li Yang?"
"The bandit chief which was raising Cain around here a couple of years ago?" I said. "Sure. He raided all up and down the coast. Why?"
"Last night I came upon a Chinaman dying in the alley behind the theater," she said. "He'd been stabbed. But he had a piece of paper in his mouth, which had been overlooked by the men who killed him. He had been one of Li Yang's soldiers. He gave me that paper, when he knew he was dying. It was a map showing where Li Yang had hidden his treasure."
"The heck you say!" I remarked, much interested.
"Yes. And the spot is less than a day's journey from here," she said. "But somehow the killers learned that I had this map. They call themselves the Whang Yi. They are the men who were the enemies of Li Yang in his lifetime. They want the treasure themselves. So they're after me. Oh, what shall I do?" she said, wringing her hands.
"Don't be afraid," I said. "I'll pertect you from them yeller-bellied rats."
"I want to get away," she whimpered. "I'm afraid to stay in Shanghai. They'll kill me. I dare not try to find the treasure. I'd give them the map if they'd only spare my life. But they'll kill me just for knowing about it. Oh, if I only had money enough to get away! I' d sell the map for fifty dollars."
"You would?" I ejaculated. "Why, that there treasure is likely to be a lot of gold and silver and jewerls and stuff. He was a awful thief."
"It won't do me any good dead," she answered. "Oh, what shall I do?"
"I'll tell you," I said, digging into my britches. "Sell it to me. I'll give you fifty bucks."
"Would you?" she cried, jumping up, her eyes shining. "No--oh, no; it wouldn't be fair to you. It's too dangerous. I'll tear the map up, and--"
"Wait a minute!" I hollered. "Don't do that, dern it! I'll take the risks. I ain't scared of no yeller bellies. Here, here's the fifty. Gimme the map."
"I'm afraid you'll regret it," she said. "But here it is."
Whilst she was counting the fifty, I looked at the map, feeling like I was holding a fortune in my hand. It seemed to represent a small island laying a short distance offa the mainland, with trees and things growing on it. One of these trees was taller'n the others and stood off to itself. A arrer run from it to a spot on the beach, which was marked with a "x." There was a lot of Chinese writing on the edge of the map, and a line of English.
"Fifty paces south of that tall tree," said Miss Hopkins. "Five feet down in the loose sand. The island is only a few hours run from the port, if you take a motor launch. Full directions are written out there in English."
"I'll find it," I promised, handling the map with awe and reverence. "But before I start, I'll see you home so them Whang Yis won't try to grab you."
But she said, "No, I'll go out the front way and hail a cab. Tomorrow night I'll be safe on the high seas. I'll never forget what you've done for me."
"If you'll give me the address of where you're goin'," I said, "I'll see that you get a share of the treasure if I finds it."
"Don't worry about that," she said. "You've already done more for me than you realize. Goodbye! I hope you find all you deserve."
And she left in such a hurry I hardly realized she had went till she was gone.
WELL, I WASTED no time. I forgot all about Red Hoolihan--a man with millions on his mind ain't got no time for such hoodlums--and I headed for a certain native quarter of the waterfront as fast as I could leg it. I knowed a Chinese fisherman named Chin Yat who had a motor launch which he rented out, and being as I had given all my money to Miss Hopkins, I didn't have no dough, and he was the only one which I knowed would let me have his boat on credit.
It was late, because the fight card had been a unusually long one. It was away past midnight when I got to Chin Yat's, and I seen him and a big white man puttering around the boat, under the light of torches burning near the wharves. I bust into a run, because I was afraid he'd rent the boat before I could get there, though I couldn't figger what any white man would want with a boat that time of night.
As I hove up, I hollered, "Hey Chin, I wanta rent your boat--"
The big white man turned around, and the torchlight fell on his face. It was Red Hoolihan.
"What you doin' here?" he demanded, clenching his fists.
"I got no time to waste on you," I snarled. "I'll fix you later. Chin, I gotta have your motor-boat."
He shook his head and sing-songed, "Velly solly. No can do."
"What you mean?" I hollered. "How come you can't?"
"'Cause it's already rented to me," said Hoolihan, "and I've done paid him his dough in advance."
"But this here's important," I bellered. "I _got_ to have that boat! It means a lot of dough."
"What d'you know about a lot of dough?" snorted Hoolihan. "I need that boat because I'm goin' after more dough than you ever dreamed of, you bone-headed ape! You know why I ain't takin' the time to caulk the wharf-timbers with your gore? Well, I'll tell you, so you won't get no false ideas. I ain't got the time to waste on a baboon like you. I'm goin' after hidden treasure! When I come back, that boat'll be loaded to the gunnels with gold!"
And so saying, he waved a piece of paper in my face.
"Where'd you get that?" I yelped.
"None of your business," he said. "That's--hey, leggo that!"
I had made a grab for it, in my excitement, and he took a poke at me. I busted him in the snout in return, and he nearly went over the lip of the wharf. He managed to catch hisself--and then he let out a agonized beller. The paper had slipped outa his hand and vanished in the black water.
"Now look what you done!" he howled frant
ically. "You've lost me a fortune. Put up your mitts, you spawn of the devil's gutter! I'm goin' to knock--"
"Did your map look like this?" I asked, pulling out mine and showing it to him in the torchlight. The sight sobered him quick.
"By Judas!" he bawled. "The same identical map! Where'd you get it?"
"Never mind about that," I said. "The p'int is, we both knows what the other'n's after. We both wants the treasure Li Yang hid before the Federalists bumped him off. I got a map but no boat, you got a boat but no map. Let's go!"
"Before I'd share anything with you," he said bitterly, "I'd lose the whole shebang."
"Who said anything about sharin' anything?" I roared. "The best man takes the loot. I still got a score to settle with you. We finds the plunder, and then we settles our argument. Winner takes the treasure!"
"Okay with me," he agreed, blood-thirstily. "Come on!"
But as we sputtered outa the harbor in the starlight, a sudden thought hit me.
"Hold on!" I said. "Does this here island lie south or north of the port?"
"Cut off the engine and we'll look at the map," he said, holding up a lantern. I done so, and we peered at the line of English which was writ in a very small, femernine hand.
"That's a 'n'," said Red, pointing at it with his big, hairy finger. "It means the island lies north of the harbor."
"It looks like a 's' to me," I said. "I believe it means the island's south of the harbor."
"I say north!" exclaimed Hoolihan, angrily.
"South!" I snarled.
"We goes north!" bellered Hoolihan, brandishing his fists. He hadn't no control over his temper at all. "We goes north or nowheres!"
As I started to rise, my foot hit something in the bottom of the launch. It was a belaying pin. I ain't a man to be gypped out of a fortune account of the stubbornness of some misguided jackass. I laid that belaying pin over Red Hoolihan's ear with a full-arm swing.
The Robert E. Howard Omnibus: 97 Collected Stories Page 95